We’re not even 60 games into the regular season yet and it feels like every Avalanche fan has aged about 10 years since October.
Seriously, what a year it’s been.
So much has happened that some of the storylines around the team feel almost forgotten. Remember the goaltending issues? Of course you do. But I bet it’s not as top-of-mind as it was before Mikko Rantanen was suddenly traded.
These are six potentially forgotten storylines that come to mind for me — the ones that feel like they happened last season because of how much has changed since then.
Pierre-Edouard Bellemare’s PTO
This honestly feels like it was a lifetime ago. Former Avalanche center Pierre-Edouard Bellemare came to training camp with a chip on his shoulder hoping to earn a spot on the roster. Instead, he worked as hard as possible and still got cut.
The Avs opted to go with younger options like Ivan Ivan on opening night and Bellemare didn’t make it past training camp.
Calum Ritchie Makes the Team
Remember when Valeri Nichushkin and Artturi Lehkonen weren’t ready to start the season? All the talk was around 19-year-old Calum Ritchie, who was hyped up as the next-best Avs prospect. He still is, and will likely get another big chance to crack the roster soon.
But when Ritchie made the team out of training camp, nobody really knew what to expect. He played seven games and scored one goal before getting sent back down.
Kaapo Kahkonen, the Savior?
The Avalanche played one game before they realized that Alexandar Georgiev and Justus Annunen would be a problem.
One game. That’s all it took.
The front office took the first chance they had to put a bandaid on their goaltending issues by picking up Kaapo Kahkonen off of waivers from the Winnipeg Jets. He was brought in two days after an 8-4 opening-night loss to the Vegas Golden Knights. It took almost three weeks for him to get a chance to play.
The result? Four goals against on just 20 shots in a 5-2 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning. Kahkonen was back on waivers shortly after that and Winnipeg re-claimed him and sent him to the AHL.
Nikolai Kovalenko, Full-Time NHLer
The Avalanche waited years for forward Nikolai Kovalenko to make the jump from the KHL to North America. He’s been hyped up for two seasons because of his strong play in the KHL and was well on his way to being a great depth piece for the Avs for the foreseeable future.
But then things changed.
The goaltending issues got so unbearable that Colorado had to pull the plug on the Kovalenko experience after just 28 games. The 25-year-old was part of the trade, along with Georgiev, that brought new starting goalie Mackenzie Blackwood to the Avs.
Kovalenko wasn’t having all that great of a year anyway. There were flashes of that skill we’ve learned so much about from his time in Russia but it wasn’t translating as smoothly. He had four goals and eight points with the Avs in 28 games. He’s got one goal and seven assists with the Sharks in 17 games since.
Whether he ever becomes a solid second or third-line player is anybody’s guess. But I don’t think anyone would’ve predicted that his tenure with Colorado wouldn’t even make it to the New Year and last less than 30 games.
The Return of the Roaring 20s Line
Last year, Ross Colton was shifted to center in his first season with the Avs and developed almost instant chemistry with Logan O’Connor and Miles Wood. The trio was dubbed the Roaring 20s line and became a staple of Colorado’s bottom six.
But after O’Connor had season-ending surgery in March, the line was split up with hopes of reuniting in October. They were together again in training camp and started the season as the third line. But then Miles Wood got hurt — and wasn’t playing well before the injury. And O’Connor struggled early and couldn’t get up to speed right away.
More importantly, the top six were so hampered by injuries that Colton shifted back to the wing to join the first line.
He scored a lot of goals up there before breaking his foot blocking a shot. Since then, Colton hasn’t played much center at all. He’s found himself on a line with Wood and newly acquired center Jack Drury in recent weeks.
The Roaring 20s seems like a line we probably won’t ever see again. Head coach Jared Bednar isn’t interested in playing Colton at center and Wood, while still on the third line, has fallen out of favor with the coaching staff. The 2023-24 version of this line is but a memory.
“If you win a Stanley Cup here, then why would I want to leave?”
I can’t speak for other media outlets in Colorado, but I certainly feel like I didn’t do enough due diligence with Rantanen and his contract talks since the season began. I’ll admit that. There was a story there that was under-reported. Especially after it was made clear from the superstar Finnish winger that he wanted nothing more than to remain with the Avs.
This was the quote from Rantanen in September. I would’ve never thought back then that he’d be traded four months later.
Is the Rantanen trade a forgotten storyline? Of course not. But the fact that he came to training camp without an extension and we all just went about things as if it would automatically get figured out was wrong.
